In a study tour of incumbent media companies in London, INMA found some interesting stuff. One of them is that data is no longer an afterthought at the Financial Times. They moved a data analyst from its data department to its audience engagement team one year ago. Impressive to see how FT moves people across silos. In my work as a business person in a media company I have always met and still meet loads of resistance for cooperation - even hostility from editors. But I believe so deeply in the power of customer experience thinking, and that it only works beyond silos, that I keep reaching out. I guess I like a challenge. And I find that, when I overcome my insecurity by not mulling over what they think of me, what insult they will throw at my team, when I stop thinking about what dissapointment the interaction will bring this time, when I throw that out of the window, the hostility can actually eb away. I used to worry whether they would accept my view of things. Now I try to have no expectations, stop worrying they will share my view - or anything for that matter - and I am able to enjoy whatever the interaction brings me. I guess my point is that change works best if you have no expectations. You have to truly find each other and embrace each others light and dark sides. What seemed to be an inflexible editor clinging onto the security of past patterns, was just someone mirroring my own insecurity and my own forthcoming inflexible attitude. Change starts by changing yourself. I may not be fully there yet, but most certainly getting there.

On a lighter note, I love this idea, because it is counter intuitive. A sports newsletter for non-sports fans like me. With 50,000 subscribers it shows that there is a market if you go ‘needs focused’ in stead of only making stuff for your fans. Many non-fans want to be able to talk with others about sports and get the bare essentials. What a niche!

I admit I have an obsession with speed. Because the people that read media have an obsession with speed. With lessons from Google, loading speed at the Post is down to an incredible 80 milliseconds. Bye bye Instant Articles?

CX can go really wrong, too. Customers love to receive personalized offers based on their interests and purchase history. BUT they don’t like their online activity monitored.
And it hurts business. Eight good advices, like: you get personal too fast.

The US state of Maine is withdrawing from its iPad deployment. The number of times teachers are quoted complaining that the iPads were used for games (which can easily be disabled with the admin tools) suggests a management failure of sorts. Conversely, Chromebooks are now outselling Mac in the US, driven by the educational market which is mostly using them as cheap PCs.